The Evil Within
by MollyPiper
Summary: Chris did not come to the past because Wyatt is evil. The truth is so much worse than that. Nor did Chris come to the past alone. Spying on their mysterious whitelighter one day Piper, Phoebe and Paige are stunned to learn the horrible truth.
1. Chapter 1

Piper, Phoebe and Paige got home at about the same time. They were all unsurprised to hear noises coming from the attic. Paige rolled her eyes knowing that it was probably their wayward whitelighter Chris. "Oh god!" she groaned. "Not another demon? That's the third time this week!"

"No way!" Piper snapped. "Absolutely not! I'm still not convinced that he isn't trying to hurt Wyatt. I say we don't do anything else he says until he tells us who he is and what he hoped to achieve by coming here."

"It's a good idea, honey but do you really think he's going to go along with it?" Paige said, rolling her eyes skyward towards the attic floor.

"Be quiet!" Phoebe said suddenly, her eyes gleaming. "Be quiet, both of you!"

"What?" Piper and Paige snapped, irritated at the interruption.

Phoebe looked at her younger sister. "Can you get us upstairs and into the attic without Chris seeing, sensing or hearing us?"

"Of course," Paige said. "But why?"

"Well we all want information that Chris isn't prepared to give, right?" Phoebe said, explaining her logic. "And we all want to know what he gets up to when we aren't around. Maybe if he doesn't know we're here he'll let something slip about his identity."

"And maybe we'll find out once and for all if he's a danger to Wyatt or not!" Piper said, catching on. "Good idea!"

Paige quickly cloaked and masked herself and her two sisters before orbing them all upstairs into the corner of the attic where they were least likely to be discovered. To their surprise Chris wasn't alone in the attic. While he poured over the Book of Shadows a tall blond man paced up and down the length of the room, taking in his surroundings as though they were the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen, and a dark haired young woman, who was probably still in her teens, stared pensively out the window.

Piper immediately raised her hands to start blasting. How dare Chris bring strangers into their home? How dare these strangers come into their home? Her sisters held her back, though. They wanted all the facts before they took action.

"God it is _so _weird being back here!" the blond man, who looked a couple of years older than Chris said.

The teenage girl turned away from the window and looked at the man with amused eyes. "Since when have you ever spent any time in here?"

Chris glanced up from the book laughingly. "Yeah. It's not like you ever helped with the demon research when we were kids, Wyatt."

"_Wyatt!" _Piper gasped, her voice thankfully masked by Paige's spell. She drank in the sight of the blond man. Was this really her son, her sweet little angel? The man sure looked like Leo. But what was he doing with Chris, though? She yearned to go and put her arms around Wyatt and squeeze him tight but she held herself back hoping that her son would give her the information Chris kept holding back.

Wyatt didn't disappoint. On his next lap of the attic, a smirk on his face, he went and draped an arm around Chris' shoulders. "But that's what I had my beloved baby brother and sister for!" he said. "And you were so much better at it than me."

The young woman rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah right. You just wanted to test mom to see how much you could get away with."

"Nah," Chris said. "He just didn't want to let anything tear him away from doing his hair in front of the mirror."

"Well my hair is awesome," Wyatt joked.

"Men!" their younger sister said exasperatedly.

Suddenly Chris turned a page in the book and gave a start. "Melinda, come and take a look at this, would you? Is this the demon you saw?"

Piper had tears running down her face. _"Melinda!" _she whispered. Obviously Wyatt had been born a boy but the trip she and her sisters had taken to the future to save Phoebe's life was always in the back of her mind. She loved her son with all her heart but he always hoped that she would one day give birth to the daughter she'd met on that trip. Apparently she would. And Chris, she suddenly realised, was Leo's father's name. Oh god! Their whitelighter was her son! The young man she'd been so cruel to was her child! These three young people she'd nearly blown up were her children!

Melinda came and looked at the Book of Shadows. "I think so," she said after a moment of consideration.

Wyatt came and read over his siblings' shoulders. "The splitter demons," he read. "Formless spirits which enter their victim's brain and leech off their magic, slowly draining it and eventually killing whoever they're attached to. They use the stolen magic to reproduce splitting themselves into a minimum of two, possibly more, splitters depending on how powerful the victim was."

"It seems to me like the aim of these things is to create entire armies of their kind, not turn others evil," Melinda said. "For that matter there's nothing here that suggests they wouldn't use other demons to leech off. Maybe they aren't such good candidates after all."

"Yeah, but remember that mom, Aunt Phoebe and Aunt Paige are way more powerful than most magic users," Chris said, taking on the roll of devil's advocate. "They would have way more magic to drain which means the splitters would have to spend way more time than usual in their bodies. That's time which mom and the aunts could have used to try and fight the demons if they realised what was going on."

"But gradually they could have lost the battle and become corrupted by the evil," Wyatt said, catching on. "I still don't know but it's better safe than sorry, right? Does it say how to vanquish these things?"

"Potion," Melinda said automatically. "Using magic on them would run the risk of them starting to leech off us."

"She's right," Chris said. "A standard vanquishing potion should do it. Do we get the cousins?"

"Probably safer not to just in case," Wyatt said. "If the three of us get infected by them that's bad but if all ten of us get infected we're all screwed."

"True," Chris said. "You both have enough potions?"

The three siblings were all wearing belts holding about a dozen vials of what the three observing sisters guessed was vanquishing potion. "Should be enough for at least one coven," Melinda said.

"Let's orb in there and just move hard and fast," Wyatt said. "Vanquish everything in sight as fast as possible. We get straight in and out."

Chris nodded. "We'll meet back at the factory afterwards?"

"As soon as possible," Wyatt said. "Right, let's do this."

After the three siblings orbed out Paige lifted her spells from herself and her sisters. All three of them had tears running down their faces. None of them could believe what they had just heard. How could they have been so wrong? "Oh. My. God."

"My children! They're my children!" Piper cried.

"And if I heard Chris right Paige and I have kids somewhere in this time as well," Phoebe said, shocked.

"And Wyatt isn't the evil Chris came to stop," Paige said heavily. "We are."

The three sisters staggered over to Aunt Pearl's old couch and collapsed on to it. They all felt tired and older beyond their years. Everything they thought they knew had just been thrown out the window. Their entire world had just been turned upside down and they had no idea what to do about it.


	2. Chapter 2

**This is an AU story so my version of the Halliwell family tree is a little different to the one on the show. I love Cole so in my story he came back and got re-married to Phoebe. They have four children together. While Paige is still married to Henry and has two daughters plus Henry Jr, their girls are not twins. Actually I think I'll post my version of the family tree now to save me having to explain who everyone is later. The reason none of the kids have the Halliwell name will be explained later when the sisters learn more about their family's dark future. **

**Leo**

**Piper **

Wyatt Matthew Bennett (24) married to Louise Leanne Bennett nee Peters (24)

Christopher Perry Bennett (22) married to Rachel Joanne Bennett nee Lange (22)

Melinda Marie Bennett (19)

**Cole**

**Phoebe**

Prudence Claire Turner (20)

Charlotte Joy Turner (18)

Nathaniel Cole Turner (15)

Alexander John Turner (15)

**Henry**

**Paige **

Susannah Jane Mitchell (21)

Elizabeth Rose Mitchell (19)

Henry James Mitchell Jr (16)

**Wyatt**

**Louise **

Mason Christopher Bennett (4)

Rebecca Leanne Bennett (3)

**Chris**

**Rachel **

Harrison Victor Bennett (1)

Samantha Hope Bennett (1)

* * *

"Chris! Chris!" Piper called desperately, hoping that the young man would come.

Phoebe and Paige were sitting at the kitchen table behind her. It was 24 hours since their horrific discovery of who Chris really was and why he was here and the three sisters had finally agreed that it was time to confront him.

A few seconds later the young whitelighter orbed in looking just the same as he always did. Until yesterday Piper had thought that his trademark facial expression was one of arrogant cockiness. Now, though she could see that it was one of extreme wariness and reluctance, as though he would rather be anywhere but here. It was amazing how much perspective a single day could give a person.

'_Dear God,' _Piper thought. _'What have I done?' _

She had kicked her son out of the home he had probably grown up in. She had told him that she never wanted to see him again. She had threatened to blow him up and made him feel so unwelcome that he didn't feel safe spending time with his family. She, along with her sisters, had done something so heinous it necessitated all her children travelling back in time to try and save the world.

It was final. Piper Halliwell had officially failed as a mother.

"What?" Chris asked warily, glancing awkwardly between the three sisters.

Piper realised that they'd all been staring at Chris, studying him in a new light as a son and nephew instead of the pesky, interfering whitelighter they'd considered him to be until very recently. Before she could say anything, though Paige stepped in.

"We were wondering if there was anything we can do to help you?" the youngest sister asked.

"Yeah," Phoebe perked up. "Demons to vanquish or something."

"Why?" Chris asked suspiciously. "You've never offered before."

"Chris," Piper reasoned, trying not to cry. "We know you're only trying to help our family."

"Do you really?" Chris asked sceptically.

"We do," Piper asserted.

"Riiight," Chris drawled sarcastically. "So tell me, then: what changed?" he challenged.

Piper swallowed hard. This was the moment. She couldn't put it off any more. She looked Chris in the eye. "I found out that my son is doing everything he can to try and hold our family together. I found out that my children have risked everything to try and stop me and my sisters from making the worst mistake of our lives. The least we can do is try and help out."

Chris' eyes bulged out of his head. "You know!" he whispered faintly. "Oh god, you know." Chris hadn't felt this off balance since that horrible day eight years ago when he'd first witnessed his beloved mother murder an innocent.

"Chris," Phoebe said gently. "Chris, honey, its okay."

Chris didn't seem to hear her. "Oh god," he muttered. "But how do you know? Then he remembered the events of the previous day. It was the only explanation. "The attic! You were in the attic yesterday! You spied on us!" he accused.

"Well, yes…but," Piper began, shifting uncomfortably.

Again Chris ignored the sisters and then shocked them by orbing out.

"No!" Piper wailed. "Chris come back! Where did he go?" she cried frantically.

"Can you sense him?" Phoebe asked her younger sister desperately.

"No," Paige said in frustration. "He's blocking me."

"He hates me!" Piper sobbed. "He really hates me!"

"He's had a massive shock, sweetie. Maybe he just needs time," Phoebe suggested.

Like her son before her Piper didn't seem to register what anyone was saying to her. "Then again I've been so horrible to him I can't blame him for hating me," Piper said to herself. "I'm a horrible mother."

"No you're not," Paige said, catching the comment. "Phoebe's right, sweetie. He just needs time."

Time was something they ended up having a lot of, though. Hours passed and although they called for him Chris didn't come back. As every moment passed Piper seemed to grow more and more despondent. They tried to keep their older sister's spirits up but when Piper was out of earshot Phoebe and Paige began to consider the horrible possibility that Chris was gone and not coming back. After everything they'd done to him they couldn't really blame him if he had. Of course if that was the case they had no chance of meeting Wyatt or Melinda, either.

Just as they were wondering whether it was worth trying to scry for their wayward nephew Chris surprised them all by orbing back in. He wasn't alone, though. He was accompanied by Wyatt and two girls, about Melinda's age, but neither of whom were their younger sister.

"CHRIS!" the three sisters screamed.

Piper dropped what she was doing and raced over to the young man, obviously planning on giving her son a hug. Chris, though gave her a glacial look and stepped out of reach, a half step behind his older brother. Piper looked as though she had been slapped.

"Chris tells us that you people decided it was acceptable to listen in on a private conversation between us and our sister," Wyatt said coldly.

"Wyatt, please," Piper begged softly, turning to her eldest.

"And apparently you all feel that, despite months of making my brother's life hell, everything is sunshine and roses now that you've found out we're family," Wyatt continued as though his mother hadn't spoken.

"Oh, honey it's not like that," Paige explained. "We know we messed up and we want to make things right."

"We'll make room for the three of you here at the house," Piper added hopefully.

Wyatt snorted. "Firstly there are 16 of us here from the future and Chris, Mel and I aren't leaving the others. Secondly I would rather dig pins into my eyeballs than live in a place where Leo spends regular amounts of time."

"But Wyatt he's your father," Piper whispered in horror.

Wyatt sneered. "Mother, Leo and I may share a tiny bit of DNA but trust me: he stopped being my father over 20 years ago and he was sure as hell never any sort of father to Chris or Mel."

Paige sensed that this was a very sensitive topic for her nephews and realised that there was a lot more to Chris' dislike of Leo than the elder's constant mistrust of the young whitelighter. She winced when she imagined ho bad it was going to be when Leo found out that Chris was his son and that all his children hated him. She decided it was best to change the subject for now.

"16 of you came back in time?" she questioned. "Where are you staying, then? Obviously you're aren't all staying in the back room of P3."

"That's not your concern," one of the, as yet unidentified, girls said.

Phoebe looked at the two girls, remembering what Chris and Wyatt had debated about yesterday: whether or not to get their cousins involved in the hunt for the splitter demons. She remembered feeling elated at the realisation she would have at least one child in the future. At the time she'd thought little of the subject, assuming that Chris and the others had a way of contacting their family who were still in the future but now she knew differently.

She looked at the two girls. "You're both time travellers as well, aren't you?"

"Yes," the girl who had spoken said, looking pointedly at Paige. "I'm Susannah."

"Prue," the other girls said, looking at Phoebe.

Phoebe smiled, happy that she would have at least one child sometime soon and that she would name her daughter after her late sister. Paige's thoughts were a bit more complicated. Marriage and babies had never even really crossed her mind but apparently it would sometime soon. She smiled at her daughter, realizing that she had named Susannah after her adoptive mother.

Piper looked at her two sons. Deep down she knew that she as grasping at straws but she was a mother and she couldn't give up on her children. "What do you say? Will you let us make up for what we've done?"

Chris choked. "Make up for what you've done?" he echoed mockingly. "Believe me nothing will ever make up for what you three have done!"

* * *

**Next chapter: how the sisters turned evil and what drove their children to come back in time. Leo may make an appearance but he'll bring a whole new set of issues with him so most likely he won't be until the following chapter**


End file.
